A few weeks ago, the German talent Niklas Behrens was crowned world champion in the U-23 class. Now the Bremen native will be working for a top cycling team starting next season.
Niklas Behrens celebrates his victory in the U-23 World Cup race in Zurich.
IMAGO/Photo News
As the Dutch team announced on Monday, Behrens has signed a three-year contract until the end of the 2027 season.
“I’m super happy,” Behrens is quoted as saying on the Visma website. “This is a team that I have always looked up to because of their high level of professionalism and I am very proud to now be a part of it.”
Behrens has thus climbed one of the highest levels in his steep rise in cycling. The 20-year-old has only been concentrating on cycling for around three years. The 1.95 meter tall model athlete was previously active in swimming and triathlon. On the racing bike, after two years of training, the curve showed a steep upward trend in 2024. For Lidl-Trek’s Future Team, he achieved podium places at the Tour of Austria and the Giro d’Italia Next Gen. He then came second in the U-23 race at the European Championships in September before being crowned U-23 world champion in Zurich a week ago.
“Niklas is a driver with a lot of potential,” said Visma’s sporting director Grischa Niermann. “We’ve noticed him at several races over the last two years, including the Tour de l’Avenir. He hasn’t been racing for long and still has a lot of scope for his development. We’re confident that we can keep him in his young years “Can take your career to the next step.”
Due to his stature, Behrens is predestined for time trials as well as classics and sprints. Mountains and stage races, on the other hand, might not be his thing. In his World Cup triumph, he provided a sample of his strengths: First, he pulled away from a breakaway group before leaving his last competitor, Slovakian Martin Svrek, no chance on the home straight.
“I hope that in the coming years I can discover my true specialty with the help of Visma – Lease a bike,” said Behrens. “I think I can do well in the classics, but I also want to continue to develop my time trial skills. Also, I’m not slow in sprints, which is important for winning races.”
Visma – Leas a bike has been one of the financially strongest and dominant teams in the WorldTour for years. The focus of the Dutch team is on tours, in 2023 Visma was the first team to win all three major national tours: Primoz Roglic won the Giro, Jonas Vingegaard the Tour and Sepp Kuss the Vuelta. This season, however, things didn’t go so well, with Vingegaard in particular lagging behind his form after his crash on the Tour of the Basque Country.
